Milk Street: The World in a Skillet

From a wok to a clay pot, every cuisine has a ubiquitous pot or pan that can cook just about anything. In the United States, the most common pan is a simple 12-inch skillet. Here you’ll find 125 recipes that will transform and expand the way you use this versatile piece of cookware.

To liberate the skillet from commonplace fare, we share what we’ve learned from our travels and from cooks in more than 35 countries. We drew inspiration from the East African islands of Mauritius and Reunion for Shrimp Rougaille, based on a Creole tomato sauce that reflects European and Indian influences. And in India, a wok-like vessel called a kadai or karahi is common. We use a skillet instead to make Chicken Curry with Tomatoes and Bell Peppers.

The skillet also is a good choice for the stir-fried Sichuan classic Spicy Glass Noodles with Ground Pork, fragrant Vietnamese-Style Lemon Grass Tofu, and Mexican-Style Cauliflower Rice. You can even use it to make Three-Cheese Pasta, Skillet-Roasted Peruvian-style Chicken, and Pizza with Fennel Salami and Red Onion.

To make it easy to find the recipe you need, we organized chapters by cooking times (an hour or less, 45 minutes, and under 30 minutes) as well as sections for side dishes, pastas, grains, stir-fries, pan roasts, and skillet-griddled sandwiches. And because the cooking is limited to one pan, the techniques are straightforward and the clean-up is easy.

Great cooking is rarely about which pan you put on your stove. It’s about what you put inside it. Push those limits, and find a new world in your kitchen.